The Lost Fleet

by Barry Clifford

  A PIRATE’S WEDDING

  Laurens de Graff had been busy as well. Legend has it that while ashore, de Graff met the great love of his life, a Breton woman named Marie-Anne Dieu-le-Veut (“God Wills It”). The story has all the romance of the tale of de Grammont’s slaying his sister’s suitor, and might be taken with an equal grain of salt.

  Marie-Anne was the widow of another adventurer, and was hardly a blushing maiden. In fact, she was at least as bold and headstrong as Laurens himself. According to the legend, Marie-Anne heard that de Graff had made some remarks about her that she deemed inappropriate. With pistol in hand, she went straight to the tavern to find Laurens and demand public apology. There “the filibuster, filled with admiration for so bold a gesture, proposed he should marry her by way of apology.”9

  With his other wife out of reach behind Spanish guns in the Canaries, and with the moral outlook of a pirate, Laurens apparently had few reservations about adding bigamy to his misdeeds.

  Petronila de Guzmán, his first wife, may have been important enough for the English to include in their offer to de Graff, and for the Spanish to use as bait in their offer. But as long as Petronila was in Spanish territory, she was as good as dead to him. Pragmatically, remarrying must have seemed the reasonable thing to do, given the outbreak of war.

  Marie-Anne was at least as pragmatic. If Thomas Lynch knew about de Graff’s first wife, it is a sure bet that Marie-Anne did, too. In any event, the couple were married soon after. The story has it that Marie-Anne wore a brace of pistols with her wedding dress, just the sort of accessorizing one would expect of a pirate’s bride.

  GATHERING FOR ANOTHER RAID

  On November 22, 1684, de Graff finally took his leave of Marie and Petit Goâve, going to sea with a crew of 120 men in the fourteen-gun Spanish dispatch vessel he had captured the previous spring. After a long passage battling contrary winds, de Graff finally arrived off the Spanish Main. On the evening of January 17, 1685, he came across a squadron of two ships and four smaller vessels.

  Believing he had blundered into a Spanish armadilla, de Graff cleared for action. An eyewitness aboard de Graff’s ship, Ravenau de Lussan, described the near disaster that took place:

  One of those boats on the Eighteenth by break of day, being a Tartane commanded by Captain John Rose, as not knowing us presently, came up and haled us; and as our Captain had a commission from the Lord High Admiral of France, the Count of Thoulouse, we made answer from Paris, and put up our Flag; But Rose who would not know us so, believing we had no other Intention in feigning our selves to be a King’s Ship, than to get clear of him, gave us Two Guns to make us strike, insomuch that taking him really for a Spaniard, we knocked out the head of Two barrels of Powder, in order to burn ourselves and blow up the Ship, rather than fall into the Hands of those People, who never gave us Quarter, but were wont to make us suffer all imaginable Torments, they beginning usually with the Captain, whom they hang with his Commission about his neck….10

  De Graff’s preparations were akin to the philosophy of saving the last bullet for yourself. De Graff knew that he could not trust any promises the Spanish would make to secure his surrender. Pirates frequently prepared for mass suicide when threatened with capture, knowing that the Spanish would give them a far slower death.

  The ships maneuvered to within hailing distance before any further exchange of gunfire. De Graff did not yet realize that he had come across the very squadron he was seeking, the ships Neptune and Mutine, commanded by Yankey Willems and Michiel Andrieszoon.

  The smaller, unknown vessel that had initially approached de Graff was commanded by the pirate Jean Rose, who had recently joined Willems and Andrieszoon and who was not familiar with de Graff’s ship. Fortunately, Willems and Andrieszoon recognized the vessel and ran up a private recognition signal. With disaster averted, their meeting called for celebration, or, as de Lussan put it, “obliged us to put in at the Cape, and spend that Day to visit one another.”11

  The pirates next headed for Curaçao. De Graff dispatched one of his consorts to request permission to buy masts to replace those that the pirates had lost in a storm. The governor was well aware of Willems and Andrieszoon’s plundering of the Dutch West Indiamen the year before and was not interested in aiding the pirates.

  The small buccaneer fleet continued along the Spanish Main, meeting with little success in the ventures they undertook. This was the lull before yet another storm. De Graff was, at this point, near the height of his fame and power. He had participated in nearly every major buccaneer raid of the decade and had been the prime mover of several of them, including the sack of Vera Cruz. He had a taste for such action, and was looking for more.

  Organization and discipline within the buccaneer community was loose at best. The filibusters tended to come together when it suited them and to go their separate ways when they chose. It was just this fluidity that made them so hard to stop. Infighting did not threaten them, since any disagreement would just lead to a disbanding of that particular group, with an inevitable re-forming of another filibuster army at a later time.

  So it was with de Graff’s little flotilla. De Graff favored large assaults, but not all in his fleet agreed. They decided to split up. The crews reorganized themselves and the various ships went their separate ways.

  In April 1685, de Graff once again presided over a great assembly of buccaneers, this time on Isla de Pinos, or the Isle of Pines, off the coast of Cuba. De Graff’s fame was such that when it was known he was planning something, others wanted in. Twenty-two ships gathered at Isla de Pinos, including such pirates as Yankey Willems, the Englishman Joseph Bannister, and Jacob Evertsen, a Dutchman like Willems and de Graff.

  The Chevalier de Grammont was also at Pinos. For the past few years, the Chevalier had been somewhat inactive. Following the attack on Vera Cruz, the buccaneers had met at Isla Mujeres, near Cancún, Mexico, and divided their spoils. From there, de Grammont had attempted to sail to Tortuga, but he was plagued by contrary winds. His crew and prisoners were in danger of starvation. Before that happened, he fell on and captured a Spanish vessel, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, which he robbed of food, five seamen, and most of her sails.

  Before setting the Spaniard on her way, he put twenty-two of the prisoners from Vera Cruz aboard her and gratefully issued her master a pass as a safeguard against harassment by other buccaneers, though how effective such a pass would have been is questionable.

  At last, despairing of reaching Tortuga, de Grammont sailed for Petit Goâve, where he apparently spent the remainder of the year, no doubt in the company of his old consort de Graff, with whom he had already shared many adventures.

  Whether the two buccaneers discussed plans during that hiatus is not known, but when de Graff was once again ready for a big raid, de Grammont was there. As was often the case with such large and democratic—not to mention drunken—gatherings, there was no consensus on the next attack. Many of the pirates favored another move on Vera Cruz, the spoils having been so good the last time. De Graff disagreed. He did not believe that Vera Cruz would be so easily taken a second time.

  When it became clear that there would be no agreement among the buccaneers, de Graff left Isla de Pinos and sailed for the coast of Panama.

  Rumors swirled about the buccaneers’ deliberations at this council. It is possible that de Graff and de Grammont had a falling-out. At least, that was what Sir Thomas Lynch heard from his sources among the Brethren of the Coast. He wrote to the Lord President of the Council, “Grammont is going with his own ship, and four or five more, to Leeward; he has fifteen hundred men and is supposed to have designs on Caracas. Laurens and he are great enemies; but I have heard nothing from Laurens since he took the Spaniard in St. Philip’s Bay.”12

  Unable to get their own operation going, de Grammont and the others eventually sailed after de Graff and found him on the Mosquito Coast. It is perhaps a measure of de Graff’s status that de Grammont and the others sought de Graff’s s
upport, just as they had before Vera Cruz. They seemed to agree that the big operation they were contemplating could not be launched without de Graff.

  For once, Lynch’s intelligence was not quite on. Whatever the relationship between the two filibuster leaders when de Graff took his leave of Isla de Pinos, it was soon once again a partnership. The idea of a second raid on Vera Cruz was abandoned. Instead, the buccaneers agreed on a new victim.

  This time, it was to be Campeche.

  31

  Of Destruction and Death

  [T]he French are making up a fleet of twenty-two sail at the Isle of Pines for some design which is kept very secret.

  —Lieutenant Governor Hender Molesworth to William Blathwayt

  APRIL 1685

  ISLA DE PINOS, CUBA

  PIRATE DEMOCRACY

  The decision to stage an attack on Campeche may have started as a secret, but during the summer of 1685 it was common knowledge that the buccaneers were once again gathering for a major strike.

  In April of that year, Captain Mitchel of the ship HMS Ruby, forty-eight guns, stumbled across the pirates at their rendezvous on Isla de Pinos. Though some of the filibusters who had participated in the sack of Vera Cruz had retired with their loot, many others were back. Gathered on Isla de Pinos were most of the usual suspects—de Grammont, de Graff, Yankey Willems, and Joseph Bannister, among others.

  One might expect a certain hostility between the captain of an English man-of-war and a cadre of known pirates, but instead the odd relationship between the pirates and the authorities prevailed. Mitchel does not seem bothered by this large massing of buccaneers, no doubt because he is certain that their target is Spanish. His only concern was that Bannister, an Englishman, should be serving under the French flag. The fact that he was so greatly outnumbered may also have played a part in his accommodating attitude toward the pirates.

  Mitchel parleyed with de Grammont. The exchange was reported later by Lieutenant Governor Hender Molesworth, who was serving as acting governor of Jamaica following the death of Sir Thomas Lynch on August 24, 1684, at the age of fifty-two.1

  He [Mitchel] sent aboard Grammont to know why an English ship was sailing under French colors, and demanded the arrest of Banister for serving under a foreign commission, but they all said that he had not entered the King of France’s service, so Captain Mitchel thought it best not to insist further.2

  In the face of the pirate fleet, Mitchel realized that discretion was the best course of action.

  Mitchel may not have been hostile toward the intentions of the pirate fleet, but he certainly was curious, and was willing to speculate. Molesworth wrote:

  Mitchel advises me that the French [buccaneers] are making up a fleet of twenty-two sail at the Isle of Pines for some design which is kept very secret. He supposes it to be against the galleons which were to sail this month from Cartagena for Porto Bello, but I rather suspect it may be against Cartagena itself as soon as the galleons are gone, the place being weakened by detachments from Lima and Panama.3

  Needless to say, the Spanish were even more curious about the pirates’ target. The consensus among the Spanish was that they were planning an attack on Cartagena or Havana. Both ports prepared to stave off pirate attacks. Governor Andrés de Muñibe of Havana reported to the viceroy, “I have raised a parapet of buttresses and mud walls for the defense of the inner channel of this port, which is adjacent to the mouth.”4

  Havana, however, was considered a tough nut to crack, and some of the pirates held Cartagena in superstitious awe. Cartagena was the site of the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Popa, and many privateers would blame any of their misfortunes on it. In 1669, while he was preparing to raid Panama, Henry Morgan’s flagship, Oxford, blew up, killing 350 men. Only Morgan and a handful of others survived. The Spanish claimed that on that night, the “Lady of the Monastery” came back with her clothes wet, dirty, and torn. That legend was enough to make many pirates uncomfortable with the thought of sacking Cartagena.

  No one seemed to have guessed that the real target was Campeche. This ignorance could have been a great advantage to the buccaneers, had they been able to maintain the element of surprise, but instead they squandered it.

  The fleet shifted from the Mosquito Coast to Isla Mujeres. While the main part of the buccaneer fleet lay at anchor at Isla Mujeres, a number of ships were sent to patrol off Cape Catoche, the northeast-ernmost point of the Yucatán Peninsula across a narrow strip of water from the western tip of Cuba. There the pirates kept a watch for other freebooter vessels passing that way that might wish to join in the party.

  For a month, the pirates kept up their patrol. It is unclear why they waited so long before staging their attack. They were only three hundred miles from Campeche; it was inevitable that this picket would be discovered. The Spanish coast guard frigate Nuestra Señora de la Soledad arrived at Campeche with her small convoy to report that on May 27 they had been chased by an unidentified enemy. Regular reports of pirate activity began reaching Felipe de la Barrera y Villegas, the deputy governor of Campeche. There was even time for Don Felipe to dispatch spy boats to keep an eye on the freebooters and report as soon as they mobilized.

  For the buccaneers, it must have seemed like old times. De Graff, de Grammont, Yankey Willems, Michiel Andrieszoon, Jean Foccard, and Pierre Bot had all been together at Vera Cruz, Caracas, and Maracaibo, had all sailed together before, had all plundered the Spanish, side by side. Many of them had been there on the sandy beach of Las Aves with the Chevalier de Grammont. There were relative newcomers as well, such as Rettechard and Jacob Evertsen.

  THE SACK OF CAMPECHE

  In late June, word arrived that the pirates were under way, rounding the Yucatán and sailing south toward Campeche. After decades of pirate raids, the Spanish were quite adept at making valuables and noncombatants disappear into the countryside, even at a moment’s notice. With several months’ notice, Campeche was cleaned out.

  On the afternoon of July 6, 1685, the pirate fleet arrived. It consisted of six large ships, four smaller ones, six sloops, and seventeen piraguas. From these vessels came a force of seven hundred buccaneers manning a flotilla of ships’ boats pulling en masse for the city’s landing. The people of Campeche were far from surprised.

  Ready for action, de la Barrera sent out four militia companies totaling four hundred men to cover the beach where the pirates intended to land. Though the militia were outnumbered, they still held the advantage. In any amphibious operation, be it a pirate landing in Mexico, or the Allied landing on the beaches of France, seaborne troops are at their most vulnerable as they are attempting to disembark. The freebooters understood that. In the face of the militia, they drew off and did not attempt to land.

  The buccaneers spent the night in the open boats, bobbing out of range of the Spanish defenders’ guns. The next morning, they took up their oars and headed back toward their ships, giving every appearance of abandoning the attack. One can imagine the cautious relief felt by those remaining in Campeche.

  The relief was short-lived. Before the pirates reached their ships, they sheered off and pulled hard for the edge of the city, coming ashore before the militia could realign themselves to oppose their landing. Rather than hurling themselves immedately upon the city, the pirates formed up into four orderly columns and advanced on different points of the city’s perimeter. One hundred men formed the vanguard under Captain Rettechard, and two hundred under de Graff headed straight for the center of Campeche, while another two hundred led by Jean Foccard marched down a street parallel to de Graff. De Grammont led two hundred more in a march that circled around the city.

  It was brilliant organization, brilliantly executed. The Spaniards fell back in the face of this onslaught, overwhelmed by the tactics and the sheer numbers of the invaders.

  On Governor de la Barrera’s insistence the coast guard frigate Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, which had first brought news of the pirates to Campeche, had remained in the harbor to h
elp with the city’s protection. Her captain, Cristóbal Martínez de Acevedo, intended to scuttle the ship if it appeared she might be taken by the buccaneers.

  Seeing how quickly the city’s defenses were falling apart, Martnez decided that scuttling was too slow. He ordered a trail of gunpowder run to the ship’s magazine. After the crew abandoned ship, Martnez lit the fuse from the ship’s boat.

  The Soledad blew up with a tremendous explosion. The blast not only destroyed her but utterly unnerved Campeche’s defenders and shattered their morale. They abandoned the fight and took refuge in various strongholds around the city, primarily the citadel. Governor de la Barrera’s attempts to rally the defenders were to no avail. He and the men under him were driven out of the city and into the countryside. The governor abandoned his attempt to save the city and saw instead to the safety of his wife and children. Campeche was in the hands of the buccaneers.

  The pirates spent the next few days routing out the troops who remained in the various strongholds. Finally, only the citadel remained. At dawn on July 12, 1685, the pirates began bombarding that fortress. Their attack was interrupted a few hours later by the appearance of two relief columns of Spanish militia, which had marched down from Mérida de Yucatán, the provincial capital about ninety miles away.

  The Spanish troops, apparently, were quite confident of their ability to drive the pirates back into the sea. When de la Barrera tried to assemble the troops in a nearby town to mount a coordinated attack, he was ignored. Instead, the troops marched right on in a headlong assault.

  The elaborate defenses that de la Barrera had built up to defend Campeche against the pirates now helped the pirates defend Campeche against the relief force. The Spanish troops marched right into well-aimed volleys from the pirates, who shielded themselves behind Campeche’s ramparts. The Spanish were mowed down as they approached the walls of the city. The casualties were too many to count.